Rescuing a jewel

Tribune photo by Nancy Stone

A Shipibo Indian woman washes herself from a canoe in the waters of the Pisqui River in the Peruvian village of Nuevo Eden. In May 2001, the Field Museum and CIMA, a Peruvian conservation organization, succeeded in persuading the Peruvian government to declare the Cordillera Azul region of the Amazon a national park. The park, nearly 60 percent larger than Yellowstone, protects some of the most pristine tropical rain forest in the world.

The "Marginal," a rutted dirt road barely wide enough for a truck, is the main thoroughfare in eastern Peru, making it impossible for farmers to deliver their crops to markets where they could get a better price for them.